LOL! You should post this in the funny pics gallery
Nice photoshop work, how long did that take you?
Heh .. I just updated that pic .. worked on it a bit more, the comp is much better ... All up about 30 mins to do it ... Hope Mike takes it the right way, ...
Just a bit of fun Mike ... Look forward to updates ...
One thing I did though is take new photos of my real dome in a reflection-less environment, with a polarizing filter on, to extract new textures for the dome itself.
Oh hey, Wiz: Man your R2's come a long way!! Nice work there!
I don't know, you probably knowwhat you are doing, but this last picture does not look as realistic as usual. It might be this straight thin specularity on the dome and the highlight on the blue part, does not look very natural. I mean, it's great, but compared to your older renders, it does not look as good
That's the anisotropic highlight. All brushed aluminum surfaces have three components: 1) The anisotropic reflection created by microgrooves on the surface; the direction of the "stretched highlight" is perpendicular to the direction of the grooves. 2) An isotropic, "base" reflection, usually about 2.5-3x the roughness of the surface grooves, and 3) Surface crap: i.e, dust, grease, etc. How bright and sharp the anisotropic highlight will be depends on how shiny and clean the surface is.
For example, here's a really shiny, real dome:
So there it's really pronounced and sharp. With a slightly rougher surface, the highlight will spread and get slightly dimmer. It's also dependent on the size of the light source, obviously, since it's just a reflection.
R2's domes have varying levels of crap on them, and no two were polished exactly the same way, so you get slightly varying levels of anisotropy from shot to shot. My favorite thing about working with a physics-based renderer, though, is that once you create a microdisplaced/microgrooved surface, the anisotropy takes care of itself, in a physically accurate way. If the resulting anisotropy is too sharp or too wide or too dim, you address the surface muck/roughness; that's what creates the highlight in the first place.
Here you can see my dome is shinier than the one in the above shot - its highlight is a touch wider/dimmer and the light spreads across the dome more. The character of my dome is in keeping with what I call Dome #2, the primary dome seen in ANH, currently in the Archives. It was, overall, cleaner than most (for some of the film, anyway.) The dome pictured in the above ANH shot, incidentally, is a weird, incorrectly painted dome with a ton of surface damage which only appears in the film a few times; this shot, for one. But this is also the dome seen in the very opening shot of the film with 3PO and R2 heading down the Tantive corridor.
My previous post's render is also in a really abstract and stark environment, which does not help any. The identical droid seen under an hdr, for example, looks better:
And again, the intensity and nature of the emitter makes an impact. Lit by this desert .hdr, with relatively limited range, even the sun hit isn't that overpowering:
There is so much more I want to do on my Artoo, and as ever mate I am inspired (and very gratefully 'forced' ((:))) to continue to learn and improve) by your work/updates!
The 423HDR and DomeCheck renders look really cool, you are definitely cacputring the ANH Artoo
There are no words for how good this model is. Words simply fail. I'm glad to see you've revived this thread!
Any chance of seeing a wireframe? In particular, I'm interested in how much you deformed the mesh, since there are no perfectly straight or curved lines in real life, as you've pointed out.
While I'm on the subject, did you manually move each vertex to get the realistic aberrations on the mesh surface, or did you use a script?
I painted all the deformations with a brush in Maya. They're pretty subtle, in most cases, but because it's a reflective surface, they read really strongly. Most of the original domes have only slight stuff on the surface; a couple have big dents, but only a couple.
All the panels - in fact everything on the model - were manually misaligned, rotated, twisted, etc. Today I save myself all that work, and never model using snaps, precision, etc. I build my models the way real modelmakers do: by eye. All those little imperfections and asymmetries add up; they make all the difference.
This is the Artoo I did for the Star Wars Complete Visual Dictionary, which showed him in a semi-exploded view. It has all the attachments, periscope, boosters, etc.
Everytime I think you surely cannot make Artoo look anymore real you prove me wrong.
I am trying out painting on the deformations on my Artoo (I have never used this tool), and it is working out quite well. I was previously using the soft selection tool on a high poly areas and trying to shape it that way, which works ok for the dents and more harsher deformations but wasnt giving me the subtle imperfections I was after, so many thanks for the tip!
Are you planning on doing any animations with Artoo, would be great to see him moving around (what are your render times now?).
"More real than real." That's my motto *sigh* maybe one day...
Render times aren't bad... it's all relatively speaking, of course. What was Transformers 2 topping out at? 72 hours per IMAX frame?
I'd have to time the next full render, but these tests were each about 10-15 minutes on a dual AMD Opteron 2.2. Octacores are showing up Monday, though...:devil: Perhaps then some animations...
Posts
_Mike
_Mike
when do you start with the 1:1 X-Wing? :runs:
Chris
Jas
*EDIT* .. Tweaked it a bit more ...
Nice photoshop work, how long did that take you?
Heh .. I just updated that pic .. worked on it a bit more, the comp is much better ... All up about 30 mins to do it ... Hope Mike takes it the right way,
Just a bit of fun Mike
Jas
_Mike
Good to see you back, and here I am again at the altar of Mike's Artoo and drooling! (at both of them :P)
Coupla little things still bugging me.
One thing I did though is take new photos of my real dome in a reflection-less environment, with a polarizing filter on, to extract new textures for the dome itself.
Oh hey, Wiz: Man your R2's come a long way!! Nice work there!
_Mike
For example, here's a really shiny, real dome:
So there it's really pronounced and sharp. With a slightly rougher surface, the highlight will spread and get slightly dimmer. It's also dependent on the size of the light source, obviously, since it's just a reflection.
R2's domes have varying levels of crap on them, and no two were polished exactly the same way, so you get slightly varying levels of anisotropy from shot to shot. My favorite thing about working with a physics-based renderer, though, is that once you create a microdisplaced/microgrooved surface, the anisotropy takes care of itself, in a physically accurate way. If the resulting anisotropy is too sharp or too wide or too dim, you address the surface muck/roughness; that's what creates the highlight in the first place.
Here you can see my dome is shinier than the one in the above shot - its highlight is a touch wider/dimmer and the light spreads across the dome more. The character of my dome is in keeping with what I call Dome #2, the primary dome seen in ANH, currently in the Archives. It was, overall, cleaner than most (for some of the film, anyway.) The dome pictured in the above ANH shot, incidentally, is a weird, incorrectly painted dome with a ton of surface damage which only appears in the film a few times; this shot, for one. But this is also the dome seen in the very opening shot of the film with 3PO and R2 heading down the Tantive corridor.
My previous post's render is also in a really abstract and stark environment, which does not help any. The identical droid seen under an hdr, for example, looks better:
And again, the intensity and nature of the emitter makes an impact. Lit by this desert .hdr, with relatively limited range, even the sun hit isn't that overpowering:
_Mike
:eek!::eek!:
Edit: btw, how is your star wars legacy edition doing? it's been dead for a while. Any chance of seeing it resurrecting some day?
There is so much more I want to do on my Artoo, and as ever mate I am inspired (and very gratefully 'forced' ((:))) to continue to learn and improve) by your work/updates!
The 423HDR and DomeCheck renders look really cool, you are definitely cacputring the ANH Artoo
The site's years in need of an update. The project was finished twice already -done, and re-done. There is a third version starting in August.
Wiz: thanks.. keep it up. I'm actually this close to scrapping and starting over. You know, to really do it right.
_Mike
So lets scratch it!
Artoo is truly under the skin!
Waste Not, Want Not Mike, .... Send the Scrap to me ....
Jas
Mike the subtle bumps and imperfections on the dome really help to push the realism, are these in the mesh or a bump map?
_Mike
_Mike
Any chance of seeing a wireframe? In particular, I'm interested in how much you deformed the mesh, since there are no perfectly straight or curved lines in real life, as you've pointed out.
While I'm on the subject, did you manually move each vertex to get the realistic aberrations on the mesh surface, or did you use a script?
All the panels - in fact everything on the model - were manually misaligned, rotated, twisted, etc. Today I save myself all that work, and never model using snaps, precision, etc. I build my models the way real modelmakers do: by eye. All those little imperfections and asymmetries add up; they make all the difference.
_Mike
_Mike
I am trying out painting on the deformations on my Artoo (I have never used this tool), and it is working out quite well. I was previously using the soft selection tool on a high poly areas and trying to shape it that way, which works ok for the dents and more harsher deformations but wasnt giving me the subtle imperfections I was after, so many thanks for the tip!
Are you planning on doing any animations with Artoo, would be great to see him moving around
Render times aren't bad... it's all relatively speaking, of course. What was Transformers 2 topping out at? 72 hours per IMAX frame?
I'd have to time the next full render, but these tests were each about 10-15 minutes on a dual AMD Opteron 2.2. Octacores are showing up Monday, though...:devil: Perhaps then some animations...
_Mike